Flawed Design
by Lendruel
Summary: Set after the time paradox. Artemis and Holly consider the broken trust between them, and decide where they stand. Artemis Fowl can only be forgiven... or forgotten. possible A/H, spoilers for time paradox. Likely to be short, about 2-3 chapters. Took the title from a song by Stabilo.
1. Lies

**Hey I'm back or whatever! Sorry for the delay. Again. Man I am a pretty unreliable person. This is going to be a short thing, somewhere around two to three chapters. Don't worry, I'm not abandoning vacation, I just haven't written anything dramatic in a while. Set after the time paradox I guess. Also I took the title from a song name (flawed design- stabilo) because it fits perfectly and screw you I do what I want. Looking back it probably influenced how I wrote this. cover photo from freefoto. Possible A/H. please review and criticize, because I like the attention, and go read my other story if you haven't yet.**

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It's cold. Colder than she's ever been comfortable with, but merely a winter chill by human standards. A great oak tree stands not far off, surrounded by a forest of dense trees and gleaming icicles. The leaves around her are frosted over, crisp and fragile and strewn about. Two sets of footprints mar the pristine forest floor, broken twigs and shattered ice. They point towards each other, cut off at the center by a frozen brook. The ice at the surface cracks and sparkles, not strong enough to resist the deadening cold of winter. She wonders if it flows still, under the surface. _How deep does the ice reach, _she wonders. _And, when this ice is gone, will there be anything left? _

He shivers. His designer suit is doing little to protect him from the cold. It lies unbuttoned, blowing gently in a gust of freezing wind. No snow falls, but flecks of ice detach themselves from branches and sting his face. He does not flinch. He does not close his coat against the wind. He stands there and shivers, pale and shivering, accepting it as penance. _Better than I deserve, _he thinks. The wind spirals on, wrapping around him and playing with the strands of his black hair. A lock of it falls into his face, covering a hazel eye. The remaining gazes forwards still, blue and bright as the ice in the air. He fixes his hair, freeing the sight of his stolen eye. A gift. A memento. A memory.

She observes the boy before her. A man, and a boy, but never a child. Never innocent. A genius to be sure, a friend to the people. A friend to her? _No, _she thinks to herself. _He threw that away._ A distant past, a bond formed over tragedy and triumph. A broken boy made whole. Changing her, and being changed. Turning to the side of good without ever realizing. Never truly evil, only a broken boy who wanted his family. _But some things never change. _Countless triumphs, insurmountable odds, unimaginable loss. The two of them. And so many lies, little white lies and world changing deceits, to her, to his family, to the world at large. And a betrayal, a shattering of the trust they had built. All for the plan. _Because he always has a plan, doesn't he? Everything for the plan. _And it had worked. She had helped him, his mother was saved, another evil vanquished. But still there was the lie. And it was so _stupid, _because she would have helped him _anyway, _and he should have _known _that, and he had still _lied, _and she had _kissed him, _and _Why didn't he trust me? _They had been friends. They had been enemies. They had been partners in war. What were they now?

He observes his guilt as it stands before him. The auburn hair, whipping in the gale that was slowly springing up. Framing her sharp, beautiful features, all of them now distrustful and angry. And hurt. And it hurt him. That look in her eyes, that pain, that betrayal, and she should have seen it coming. He should have. "Never trust anyone but yourself". That was the sentence burned into his mind, over years of neglect and responsibility and being so, so alone, he had known he was the only one he could trust. Even butler had never been privy to all his secrets, despite his love for the Eurasian man. Then he had found her. Caught her. Gained a friend, and more, someone he could trust. But he had still lied, and why was that? He knew he trusted her, his best and only true friend. But he didn't trust himself. He had grown so used to the lying, and the secrets, that they had become second nature to him. First nature, if that was actually a term people used. He had always lied, even as a child. He had been so young when he learned how to control people, to manipulate them to get his way. And now, when he finally had almost everything he wanted, when the lying was what was standing in his way, he couldn't turn it off. He hadn't realized what he was doing in time to protect those he loved. Where had all his famous self-control gone? When what he needed most was honesty and sincerity, when he had finally found someone he deemed _worthy _of his trust, he threw it all away because of another lie. When he had finally found somewhere he fit in. the two of them were a pair, a team. Partners. They needed each other, and helped each other. It had become well known eventually. The two of them saving the world together. And that was just it- it was always the two of them, together. People knew who to come to in a crisis. And now they were separated by another of his tricks. He hadn't even meant to, wanted to. He could see himself as he said the words, screaming and beating at the glass that separated him from his voice to stop, to think, to _shut up for once in my life and not ruin this for myself!_ But he had lied, and he didn't know how to fix it.

Artemis fowl and Holly short faced each other, separated by the distance of a few feet, a frozen stream, the ice in the air, and a thousand frozen lies, and waited. And still the wind blew, and the ice stung their faces, and they did not know what they waited for. They waited for and excuse, or an opportunity. For punishment or for redemption. They waited for forgiveness, or for the final blow to fall. They waited for the end of this pain, one way or another. Because, when it came down to it, if they weren't "the two of them", then they were nothing at all.


	2. I'm Sorry

**Hello again! Writing about winter is hard in the summer, I just noticed that I seem to constantly change tense when I write, and I don't know where I'm going with this story. Shall we begin? Also review or something I guess. Chapter three out soon.**

The cold hasn't gone away. The stinging wind is ever present, whether the air is still or not. Artemis can feel the cold inside himself, in the eyes of the woman before him, in his hands lying numb at his sides. The hurt she radiates chills him to the core, the knowledge that it is his fault. That, no matter where they go from here, this will have always been him. It would always have been him who threw their bond into jeopardy.

Holly Short Looks upon her friend. Ebony hair, ivory skin, black suit. The comparison is stark- his pale flesh stands out, made worse by the cold and the fear that they both share. He looks dead, undead, something from a different place that has been given human form. A vampire, a ghost, an incubus- a skeleton of his former self. She can't deny his looks, or her own feelings for the boy- it was she who kissed him, of course. The reasons for the attraction make a list in her mind- The slender frame, the constant dignity, that ever present smugness like he knew something about you that you didn't, and he wasn't telling… that smugness was gone, for now, humility and shame in its place. The epitome of sincerity. Of course, she has been wrong before. She may accept her feelings for the boy, but that doesn't mean she has to act on them. And if they can't fix what has been broken, those feelings may well be replaced by something far darker. It is some time before either of them speaks. Hours pass in the space of a minute, seconds pass like agonizing years. Neither is sure how long they have been standing there in the cold.

"Holly." Artemis speaks first. His voice breaks a little, the cold and lack of use and raw emotion making his throat dry. Holly does not speak, waiting for him to continue. Stubborn, as always, but not rejecting him outright. His eyes are fearful, terrified of saying the wrong thing. _I only get one chance to fix this, _Artemis thinks. _If I screw this up, Holly is gone forever. And so am I. _He presses on.

"I'm sorry, Holly. You know this already, I'm sure, but I have to say it again. I don't know how else to say it. I am so, so sorry for what I've done. I know I should have trusted you, I know I do trust you. I should never have doubted you." Holly is silent. Artemis continues, the words rushing out before he has time to make them sound poetic and intelligent. Talking from the heart has always been a weakness of his. "I know what you're thinking. I always do, don't I?" Artemis nearly winces at the feeble attempt at humor. He should really know by now not to do that during his speeches. "Ah, what I mean by that is, I understand why you have every reason to hate me right now. I betrayed your trust. After everything you've done for me, after all the times you have saved my life, after everything we've been through together, I still lied to you. It seemed like the logical thing to do at the time- it was the only way I saw to be certain that you would help me. I should have understood that you would have helped me anyway. And I am so sorry that I didn't." Artemis pauses, looking at Holly. _Is she even going to speak to me again? _"I hate feeling like this. I hate knowing that I hurt you like this, that I couldn't just tell the truth. It gnaws at my mind constantly, keeping me up at night. I can't stand it. I can't stand the thought of-" Holly interrupts him, finally. Her voice is quiet, but it stops his rambling immediately. He falls silent

"You're doing it again, Artemis." Holly shoves her hands in her pockets, gazing at the young man. "You're making this about yourself." Artemis pales. "It's hard to believe, sometimes, you know? That you can kidnap me, make me your friend, make me respect you, make me _kiss _you, and then _still_ lie to me? And then, when you apologize, you actually tell me that _you _are hurting?" Holly spoke before he had a chance to try to backtrack. She had a lot of pent up aggression, and he was going to stand there and listen to her rant. "I can't believe that someone supposedly as smart as you could do something so stupid. I thought we were supposed to be a team! We were supposed to trust each other! Frond knows I trusted you. I let you make your plans and schemes and not let anyone in on the whole thing until the last second, I saved your life, I put my own life in your hands, and you never once let me down. So, when you lied to me again, I thought I could trust you. I believed you. And do you have any idea what that was like? I didn't doubt what you told me for a moment. In one selfish move, just for a little extra insurance, you let me think that everyone I've ever healed could be about to die. I trusted you so much, Artemis. I thought I could expect at least the truth from you by now." Artemis' head was lowered, now. Looking at the ground, silent. This time, when he spoke, his voice did break.

"Fine, Holly. If you want the truth, I'll tell you. If you really want to know why I lie, I'll tell you." Holly was surprised- she hadn't expected this. But she was willing to listen.

"You know quite a bit of my past by now, Holly. You know that my father was missing, that everyone told me he was dead, for years of my childhood. You know why I wanted gold, to find him and save him. You know the toll my mother's broken mind took on me. You know why I turned to crime. But do you know anything of my life before that?" Holly shook her head. She had assumed that Artemis didn't remember much from before his father disappeared- he had never once spoken of it.

"My father was kidnapped many years before I first met you. You know this. But I did have a father before he left. If you could call it that. You never knew him, Holly. Your magic changed him, made him… warmer. But before he left, he was cold. He was the reason I turned out like I did, Holly. That cold, calculating child you met so long ago was just how he raised me. Because he wasn't raising a son. He was raising an heir. I don't think he ever really thought of me as anything else." Artemis looked up, now, and his eyes were shining. Holly thought she could see a tear at the corner of one eye. Artemis clenched his jaw, not meeting her eyes. He swallowed once before speaking again. When he did, his voice shook slightly. "Do you know, he's never once told me he loved me? Or that he was proud of me? I barely even saw him. He was always in his study, or away on a business trip, supporting the family empire. Leaving the family behind. If I wanted to speak with him, I had to go find him in his study and knock, and wait to be let in. he'd sit there at his desk, back to the door. He wouldn't even look up. It was rare if he gave me more than a few minute's time. Do you know why I always insisted on being treated like an adult, Holly? Because I don't know what it's like to be treated as a child. My father never thought of me as a child, or as a son. He treated me like an employee, and a fairly unimportant one at that. My mother was the only one who treated me with any sort of affection, and then my father was gone. And while she stayed in her room for all those years, he took my mother with him when he left." Holly was speechless. She knew Artemis had had a poor relationship with his father, but hadn't thought he still felt this strongly. Artemis was still speaking, practically shouting, unable to stop a few rebellious tears from escaping.

"So I'm sorry for what I did, Holly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I lied. I'm sorry I'm selfish. I'm sorry for how I was raised. I'm sorry for kidnapping you. I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry that you lost your faith in me. I'm sorry for everything I've ever done to you, every lie I've ever told you. I'll apologize for anything you want me to, Holly, because I'm falling apart, and I don't want to lose you. You're all I've got." Artemis breathes out shakily, completely emotionally exhausted, and meets Holly's eyes for the first time since she last spoke. "Will you forgive me?"


End file.
